LITMIR.BIZ

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rush of his kiss. ‘If that’s all for this evening, I’m quite tired. I’d like to go to bed.’

      ‘It’s not quite all, actually.’

      Rose looked at him and truly hated him in that moment. She bit out, ‘What more is there?’

      ‘Your passport. We’ll need to pick it up from your house on the way to the airport tomorrow—along with whatever personal items you want to bring.’

      Rose shook her head as if that might help clear it. ‘What are you talking about?’

      ‘I have business in Tuscany. We’ll be in Italy for about ten days.’

      Rose opened her mouth to protest against this further display of might and arrogance, but Zac cut in curtly, ‘This isn’t up for discussion. You’re coming with me.’

      She watched open-mouthed as he turned and strode away from her, having delivered his decree, but just before he disappeared he turned again. ‘There are some ready-to-eat meals in the fridge, prepared by my housekeeper. Help yourself.’

      Rose’s mouth had snapped shut, but now she said testily, ‘I’m surprised you’re allowing me to eat. Surely it’d be preferable if I just wasted away out of your life altogether.’

      Zac made a tsking sound, and Rose immediately regretted her childish outburst, but at this stage she was tired and hungry and feeling thoroughly claustrophobic at the thought of going anywhere with this man.

      ‘I’m concerned, naturally, for your well-being—assuming that you are carrying my child until it is proved otherwise. And to that end I’ll be setting you up with the best gynaecologist in Manhattan as soon as we return from Italy.’

      He sent a dismissive glance up and down her body. ‘I’ll have a stylist send over some clothes before we leave.’

      This was too much. Hotly, Rose protested, ‘I have plenty of my own clothes.’ That wasn’t actually true, and her own clothes were beginning to feel distinctly tight around the midriff. She hadn’t had time to invest in maternity wear yet.

      As if reading her mind, Zac spoke again. ‘While I will be doing my utmost to keep you out of the press until the baby’s paternity is confirmed, I can’t guarantee their interest will die down. And as long as your name is linked to mine you’ll look the part.’

      When he was gone Rose sank down onto the sofa like a limp rag. Of course all he cared about now was the baby and how she might look. A man who dated supermodels obviously didn’t want to be seen to be lowering his standards.

      She thought of her father then, lost for a moment in all the tumult, and vowed to call him as soon as she was alone in her room. Luckily she hadn’t made any plans to see him until closer to the operation. He believed she was working and didn’t want her to disrupt her schedule for him.

      As much as Rose would have loved to march after Zac right now and tell him she would not be going anywhere with him, she knew she couldn’t. For all the same reasons she’d allowed him to bring her here in the first place. And, she had to concede weakly, the prospect of getting out of Mrs Lyndon-Holt’s orbit was very tempting.

      Rose put a protective hand on her small but burgeoning belly and squeezed her eyes shut, assuring herself that she would get through this. She would. These, after all, were the consequences of her actions and she had to bear them. Somehow.

      Zac looked at the slim figure silhouetted against the bucolic view. The late-summer Italian sun was glorious, sending out different-hued rays of gold and red as it set to the west. A warm breeze ruffled Rose’s wavy hair slightly, and Zac had to admit grudgingly that this was a magnificent setting for her pale rose-gold beauty.

      She was standing at a low stone wall—the perimeter of his Tuscan villa which overlooked miles and miles of rolling hilly green countryside, not far from the city of Siena.

      Rose was wearing some of the clothes he’d had sent over to the apartment before they’d left New York. The expensive fabrics suited her. Skinny jeans clung to her slim legs like a second skin. Her feet were encased in flat leather sandals. And then higher…to where her pert derriere and slim back gave no indication that she was pregnant from behind.

      Even though he couldn’t see her belly right now, he had been acutely conscious of the small proud swell, revealed when the wind had pressed her loose-fitting sleeveless top to her belly as they’d walked to the plane at a private airfield near JFK airport earlier.

      She’d pulled on a cashmere top on the plane, and Zac had never before been so distracted by the way the soft material could mould itself to a woman’s curves. Or how tactile it looked. His fingers had itched and all he’d been able to think about was how hard it had been to stop kissing her the day before.

      She’d curled up on the seat opposite him, her luminous green gaze glued out of the window as if she’d never seen the world from above before. Even after the plane had levelled off to cruising altitude.

      He’d been irritated enough by her prolonged wide-eyed wonder to ask, ‘Haven’t you been on a plane before?’

      She’d looked at him and said, ‘Yes, but I’ve never left the States.’

      She’d said it with a hint of defiance and Zac had felt his conscience prick. Then she’d turned away again and resolutely ignored him for the rest of the flight.

      Zac knew that part of his irritation was stemming from the fact that he couldn’t seem to get a handle on her. She wasn’t behaving as he might have expected. At all. And that made him deeply suspicious—which was no bad thing in light of her devastatingly effective deception.

      He took a breath now and told himself that she couldn’t get up to much right under his nose.

      The surroundings soothed him somewhat…reminding him of the big picture and what was important. He’d been so caught up with extricating himself from his family and forging his fortune in the last few years that he hadn’t even contemplated what he wanted for the long term.

      Faced with the prospect of a baby, he had to. But it was no bad thing. Because now he knew that this was what he wanted more than anything: for the Valenti name to survive and grow strong again. For it to be recognised as a force.

      He might not have chosen Rose O’Malley to be the mother of his child, but the conniving schemer had handed him a golden opportunity and he was not going to let it slip beyond his control now—no matter what secret plan she’d cooked up with his grandmother.

      Rose knew Zac was behind her, studying her. She could almost hear his brain whirring. She’d had a blissful few moments to explore on her own. She should have known it wouldn’t be long before he came to check up on his inconvenient guest. All through the flight to Italy she’d been conscious of his eyes tracking her every movement. It was as if he was just waiting for her to do something. What, she wasn’t sure.

      The view that rolled out in front of her was so beautiful it almost hurt. Her father had always told her how green Ireland was, but this looked greener than anything she could have imagined. It made her heart hurt, because she knew how badly he wanted to visit his homeland again to spread her mother’s ashes, and if the operation wasn’t successful it might be something she would have to do on her own, some day…

      She diverted her mind away from such maudlin thoughts.

      Her father was in the clinic. That was all that mattered. That was what was making this worth it.

      Zac had described this place as a ‘villa’. To Rose, though, it was more like a medieval castle. A huge sprawling terracotta castle, with terraces and courtyards and beautiful gardens tucked out of sight, bursting with flowers and greenery. There was even a swimming pool in one secluded courtyard, and it had looked deliciously inviting.

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